Techniques for upgrading and migrating software systems include configuring a target database on a computing appliance that is communicably coupled with a distributed computing environment that includes a source database, the source database including a plurality of productive database tables and a plurality of non-productive database tables; determining a distribution of database tables to migrate to the target database, the distribution including at least a portion of the plurality of productive and non-productive database tables from the source database and at least one new database table of a database upgrade; migrating the distribution of database tables to the target database; and pointing a productive system of the distributed computing environment to the target database.